"Maybe art and design? Or costume design?" she ventures. "I'd like to do something practical, because I'm not very good at writing."

"Yes, a hands-on type course might be something you'd enjoy," says Jan Taylor, senior personal adviser at Connexions in Kidderminster. She pulls down a file and selects several A4 sheets describing pathways to careers in fashion, textile and surface design, and becoming a specialist craftsperson. Looking pleased and thoughtful, Beth takes the information.

Beth is one of five year 10 pupils attending King Charles 1 school in Kidderminster to have spent the morning at their local Connexions centre. The trip has been organised by Worcester university undergraduate Michael Saunders, 20, in his role as an Aimhigher Associate.

A spin-off from the government's Aimhigher initiative, which aims to increase the numbers of pupils who move from school to higher education, Aimhigher Associates is a pilot programme matching A-C borderline pupils who teachers know have the potential to enter further and higher education but whose parents don't have a degree, with first-generation HE entrants who have overcome their own personal barriers and successfully taken up a university place. Announced with funding of £21m over three years in April 2008 and due for national rollout this June, it is envisaged that 5,500 students will support 21,000 schoolchildren in years 9 to 13.

Putting something back

"My parents never went to university," says Saunders. "They really encouraged me though, and I was lucky to go to a school where the expectation was that pupils would go. I applied to be an associate because I wanted to put something back."

Why the trip to Connexions though: don't schools give careers advice? "There's much more information and detailed advice here than schools can possibly provide," explains Eileen Stead, who co-ordinates the Aimhigher programme at King Charles 1 school. "And if they've been here once on a trip like this, they might come again," points out Saunders.

The idea behind pairing undergraduates and schoolchildren from similar backgrounds, says Val Yates, head of Worcester University's widening participation unit, who oversees the pilot, is that pupils will feel more at ease asking questions about university life of a student who left school only a couple of years ago. In turn, the student will understand better the anxieties about university life felt by pupils whose families don't have a tradition of tertiary education, and will be able to give practical information from their own experience.

Though this pilot has been running only since September last year, it is envisaged that the pupil-student mentor relationship will ideally continue for up to three years, or until pupils leave the sixth form.

"I'm the first person in my entire family to go to university," says Lauren Keer, 20, who studies drama at Worcester university, and is an Aimhigher Associate at Lacon Childe school in Shropshire. "I had no one to ask about applications. I was clueless about how to do it and my parents were clueless too!"

Keer says she understands how easy it is to be discouraged if you have concerns about something so far outside the experience of your family that there is no one to whom you can go for help and reassurance. "I did a questionnaire for about 20 pupils when I first came as an Associate, and found some answers worrying," she says. "Some of them truly thought a member of your family had to have been to university before you could be considered. Some thought that private school kids were accepted over state school kids. They were incredibly worried about money. When I first met my year 9 group, they all wanted to go, but none thought they could."

When Keer explained her background, she says pupils were shocked that she had managed to get into university at all - and that she was having such a good time.

She's since run several sessions to familiarise the group with the reality of university life: in one she brought in photos taken on the Worcester campus that showed the different ages, races and religions of the students. In another, Keer debunked the pupils' notion of students working a 9am-3pm timetable by telling them about her long hours in rehearsals, her practical workshop and lecture schedule, and the written assignments.

Being an Aimhigher Associate is also seen as a valuable developmental experience for the students involved, fostering initiative, creativity and organisational skills. It's up to them to come up with activities for their sessions: logistical support is provided by the host school, and funding comes from Aimhigher Associates. Keer is currently arranging a trip for her pupil-group to visit Worcester university to see campus life. Saunders has helped several of his group to complete application forms for residential university summer schools that are offered free to children whose parents haven't experienced a university education.

It's this highly individual attention, given by someone pupils can relate to, and over a sustained period of time, that can make a big difference, says Yates. "It's about equipping children with the knowledge that these are my options, and giving them the chance to evaluate the pros and cons of each," she explains. "We know that if a member of your family has gone to university, that normalises it. But we're talking here about pupils for whom university isn't even on the radar. So we're trying to give them the confidence to feel that yes, HE is possible for me."

Start early

Yates makes the point that Aimhigher Associates is just one of a series of building bricks needed to give children from less advantaged backgrounds the ability to grasp the opportunities afforded by further study. "Eighty per cent of 14-year-olds from lower socio-economic groups, who are identified as having the ability to go on to HE, don't. That proportion has stayed the same for a number of years," she says.

At the Worcester University widening participation unit, it's seen as crucial to offer strategic interventions throughout a child's school career, starting with summer playschemes on campus, so that mums, dads and kids feel happy coming on to the university site from early on.

It's an approach that's badly needed. "I was shocked that there's still a very apparent class issue around university. It's such a shame kids feel like that, because being here, I know it's not like that at all," says Keer. Given that a couple of years ago she was the government's target market, what does she think it will take for that to change? "It'll take knowledge," she says. "What I've found out is that they don't know about the huge number of courses available, the flexibility that's available, the resources if you're dyslexic, say, and the ways there are to fund it."

Back in Kidderminster, the King Charles 1 pupils are climbing into the minibus and heading back to school. Beth is clutching her careers information sheets tightly and keeps glancing at them, though a bag of crisps is also vying for her attention. What qualifications will she need to go on to a career in design?

"I'm not sure, I've not had chance to read them yet," she says. "But once we get back I will." It may be a long road ahead, but with support along the way, Beth and others like her will hopefully travel more smoothly along it.